The Recruit
by Nemo5
Summary: Who's the mysterious contestant? PG because of one swearword


The Recruit  
  
He saw him before he heard him. And then he barely saw a shadow. But by then it was too late. His assailant had grabbed him in a choke hold, and dragged him into a storage area. Then everything turned black.  
  
Snake dumped the body in a corner, before frisking it for any useful equipment. OSP really pissed him off. On Site Procurement was supposed to save the operative lugging unnecessary equipment around, but most wetwork teams preferred to bring in their own equipment, due to the fact that it was more likely to work, and everything would be in order. Finding only a USP, Snake sighed. What he had hoped for was a tranquilliser gun, an M9, to make the 'kills' even more silent, even if the enemy weren't technically dead. Sighing again, Snake moved off, in search of more soldiers to achieve a full arsenal of equipment. When he was debriefed, he decided, he would make a point of trying to drum the fact that OSP was useless into his current case officer's stupid little head.  
  
Snake rolled through the shadows, conveniently provided by the boxes and crates in the storage area. Even if they found the body now, which was unlikely, he would be in another area of the building before the clearing started. Reviewing the mission objectives in his mind, he decided to try and take out the terrorist leader before rescuing the hostages, as they might prove to be of little help, and might even hinder him. According to the last intelligence report he had received, Obelisk was situated in the vicinity of the computer mainframe, overseeing the complex bank fraud currently in progress. However, unlike ordinary bank frauds, the terrorists were gaining time by threatening to kill the hostages, and also to detonate a small thermo-nuclear warhead in the building, which would not only take out the building but probably the whole city. Snake mulled over the time when bank fraud was a simple thing, and decided that he had liked things better then.  
  
Reaching the corridor to the mainframe, Snake paused. Things didn't seem.right. He peered around the corner. Shit. The barrel of an M-16 poked him in the eye, closely followed by a flurry of punches. As he passed out, his last thought was 'a fist in the face often offends.'  
  
The lights came back on, and a voice bellowed from the observation tower. Idiot, it seemed to scream, and to Snake, after over three hours of silent infiltration, it hurt his ears. More than that, it hurt his pride. Removing the now defunct sneaking suit, he passed it onto the next contestant. The tall blond man looked down at him, amusement showing in his eyes. 'Don't worry,' his eyes said. 'It could happen to anyone.'  
  
James stayed around to watch. A teenager, his dream was to become the legendary Solid Snake, whom he had read about in a book by Natasha Romanenko. Winning, along with 300 other winners who had also donated over $100 to NEST, he had been given the chance to come along to the government facility, and try a VR training simulation, only based on real surroundings rather than being totally virtual. So basically, a day of being Snake, right down to the callsign.  
  
Watching from the Observatory ('Losertory more like', James thought), he watched as the man who he had handed the suit to crept in thirty seconds through an area that had taken James thirty minutes. Along with the rest of the audience, James sat up, paying more attention as the man ghosted with ease through the rest of the mission, taking out the terrorists with an ease bordering on contempt. Rescuing the hostages, diffusing the bomb and returning to safety in under an hour gained the man a standing ovation. James went down to congratulate him, but a short brunette got there first.  
  
"Hey show off, want to buy me a drink?"  
  
Closely followed by a man who seemed to be foaming at the mouth  
  
"What the hell do you think you're doing? Get back to the secure section you idiot. You know you're not supposed to be here at all, much less fooling around with the public VR!"  
  
The blond man simply smiled and shrugged, before turning away and sauntering off with the brunette. His last words to his girlfriend stayed with James for the rest of his life:  
  
"N'ah, I wasn't so hot. Snake would've been in and out before I'd reached the first guard. Just like at Big Shell." 


End file.
